


in another life

by hw7ang



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, F/M, Golden Deer Route, Verdant Wind route, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:21:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24401968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hw7ang/pseuds/hw7ang
Summary: i would make you stay.
Relationships: My Unit | Byleth/Claude von Riegan
Kudos: 41





	in another life

**Author's Note:**

> Sothis has a heart-to-heart talk with Claude.

_Claude._

_Please stay with me._

_I can't bare to lose you._

How a well thought-out plan, with months worth of preparation and thousands of lives on the line, came down to this happened too fast for anyone to comprehend.

Too many lives were lost. Too much was at stake.

Maybe this lifetime was not meant to be kind to them, because if it was, Byleth knew, pulling back the fabric of time over and over would've worked for sure. It always had, and yet, why isn't it working now? Byleth had always prevented the worst from happening, and yet, why was the only sound ringing her head the cries and pleas of her fallen deer?

The cries that she knew would forever haunt her until time ceased to move.

The fawns who wanted no more than to seek the truth of Fódlan's history, and the lions who only professed for justice for the fallen, are those who suffered most in a war whose strings were being pulled by a traumatized woman who despised the system.

She realized that the power of divine intervention that was bestowed upon her turned her into a perfectionist. It made her rely and cling onto a faith that she hadn't knew existed priority to entering the monastery, in turn changing the way she saw life as she knew it. It made her insides churn every moment time was reversed and every death was relived, and she couldn't stop.

 _I can still save them,_ is all she thinks.

To be the hero of a nation, she thought was just ridiculous as Claude's dream to unite all of Fódlan. To rule a country with no knowledge of it was ludicrous, no matter what perspective you see it from. To think that one can save the lives of all is the most ambitious of all the dreams to exist.

And yet, when she realizes that she can not save the one she cares for most, her initial concept of a dream shatters right before her eyes.

She realized, in the very moment Claude was shot out of the sky, with no hope of saving him, that he was her definition of a dream.

Byleth dreamt that they would rest to together. She dreamt that she and Claude would be Fódlan's end, just as the goddess that has been bound to her soul for as long as she can remember, was Fódlan's beginning.

" _Claude_ ," Byleth choked, a knot forming in her throat, just like the knot she tied in the strings of fate, "Don't go." she whispers, voice drowned out by the crackling of flames surrounding the capital of the Adrestian Empire.

He told himself to smile for her; to reassure her that he wasn't going anywhere, but he had lost all feeling of his body, his soul succumbing to the numbness that was death.

"Please, say something." Byleth pleaded to no end, wishing that this wasn't how fate would tell the end of their story.

Claude looked at her eyes that were once filled with brightness. Now, all that remained was a dull green, painted on a bloodied canvas. Her sea-foam hair was dyed red, reminding them of what was to be.

With all the strength he could muster, he began to form words, knowing that his time with her was cut short. His savior. "My love," he muttered, voice soaked up by the overflow of blood in his system, seeping out of all the wounds that he had gather by the end. "In another lifetime,

I'll find you again."

It seems as though the goddess wrote this timeline to favor the odds of the Empire. It favored the cruel reign of Edelgard, the princess bathed in red down to her very soul.

This timeline was not meant for Byleth and her dearest student. But somewhere deep in her soul, Sothis reaches out to her,

_Byleth, my child, I swear to you that you will live again to see the dawn of a new nation._

She understands that, but why was fate so cruel for her to witness such an end?

_Sothis, Sothis, progenitor god. My life is in your hands._

The world goes still; darkness warps Claude's vision as the hands of death takes him away from the realms of the earth, slowly drifting away from the caress of his beloved professor.

He sees her and himself for a moment, before he appears in a void, where there is no sign of life and hope.

Until, there is.

It slowly appears into existence; a throne built on top of an almighty staircase, radiating an aura that was so threatening and yet so holy. There perched on top, basking in the light of her divine power, was the progenitor god.

"I have yearned for so long to speak to you in the flesh, after years of watching you and experiencing Byleth's love for you behind her own eyes," She speaks; her voice sounds that of a child, however, it sends goosebumps down Claude's skin, sending anticipation in its wake, "I suppose, this is as close as I can get, as fate permits me to."

Claude only looks, suddenly all of his capability to speak is gone in the presence of the divine, "Claude, son of Riegan, do you know who I am?"

He shakes his head.

"I am the being that has been tangled in Byleth's life. The One that has been guiding her through the life that you have so graciously accompanied. There is a reason you appeared in my company, and it is unfortunate for me to say that it is a cruel one at that."

Claude's gaze averts, with much effort, as Her presence reels the attention in this dark, endless void. He gazes at his feet, when he knows what she means. His clothes are covered in blood, of his enemies, his deers and his own.

"You have departed from Byleth, as much as it pains me to say. I can feel her misery, and I can tell you as such that I have need felt emotion as intense as this. You must forgive me, for I have failed you."

She pauses, looking off to the side, as if she was overseeing the world at its present. There's no doubt that she is; the extent of her powers is so much more than what Claude could possibly comprehend, "When I watched this world recreate itself from scratch, I was unable to see what was in store for you and Byleth. I was only able to see things at its current pace. I can only wish that I had the ability to warn you of what was to be, but alas, even a goddess has her limitations."

The silence threatens to engulf the two of them when Sothis grows quiet, but Claude's mind is never empty, never ceasing to hear the cries of death in the battlefield. How cruel it was, to lose before one can bring justice to the nation that was stark of it.

"I can rewrite this world over and over, and forsee its creation, but I can never know what will happen of you and this world filled to the brim with history and war. But I will tell you this," Claude looks up at her again, the mother of the Nabeteans who was glowing in powerful radiance, "Your promise to Byleth will not be forgotten."

_In another lifetime, I'll find you again._

His words ring in his head like a distant memory, despite it being only a few hours after his departure.

"Byleth is in an overwhelming amount of pain; the same raw emotion that I have felt upon losing my own. You were with her until the very end, and for that, I am grateful to you for I have witnessed secondhand the admiration that you have for my other half. I will see it fit that you will cross paths with her when the world is different, and your fate is kinder."

He feels a tension relieve from his chest, one that he had not known he was holding in.

"I was Fódlan's beginning, and that is all I will ever be. But you, my child, you will live to see its end."

"...Will Byleth be there?" He says, voice so foreign since he had not spoken since he had faded from existence.

"And so he speaks," She chuckles, "I can assure you that much. You will become a great ruler; one that will yearn for nothing more but the truth. This was not your timeline, but there will be more to come where Byleth will remain by your side; it is only a matter of waiting to see which one favors your odds."

Sothis steps down from her throne, her tiny bare feet padding down the stone staircase as ancient as she is. The sound resonates through the plane, as if there were walls surrounding them for the sound to bounce off of.

She is only a few feet away from Claude, and then she speaks, "I trust that you will make good judgements. After all, Byleth would move mountains and rivers to accompany you through it all."

She hovers, so that she's face-to-face with the Almyran prince, and then she places a hand on his cheek to which he closes his eyes in comfort.

"I love Byleth, as I have grown to understand that she is the other half of my being," She says, as Claude sees what Sothis envisions in her head. Sothis shows him had what transpired between him and the professor since their lives had been entangled that faithful night. All of it appears as a flash before his eyes, until it ends— Byleth cradling him in her arms, pleading for him not to go, as his warmth disappears inevitably.

A tear slips from Claude's eyes.

"I do not know what path Byleth would have taken had you not been by her side. And there was so many she could have chosen from; all of which are beyond the reach of my knowledge. Byleth has had the ability to pull on the strings of time because of my involvement, and you can not understand the gravity of the powers that I have gifted her.

She could've chosen to teach the Blue Lions, and could've saved the Feral King from his impending doom. She could've chosen to lead the Black Eagles and watched your fellow deer fall from the towers of Enbarr.

And yet, she chose you.

She admires you so much, that there was nothing I could have done to change her mind. And it seems as though, she is willing to do it all over again if it means being in your presence."

Claude lets out a deep sigh, one shaky breath after the other, as more tears trail down his cold cheeks, staining Sothis' sacred hands with it.

He opens his eyes to see the sorrowful eyes that Sothis graces him, "Why are you telling me all of this?"

She gives a sad smile, "I am telling you what Byleth is thinking of now. What she had been waiting to say until after the Battle of Enbarr where she was planning to propose to you. I am telling you all of this because I want to instill hope in you, so may you find Byleth in another life, you will do whatever it takes to see the rise of a new dawn, holding onto Byleth's hand. I am sure you will miss that."

Silence washes over them once more, but it is more comforting as they bask in their own thoughts.

"What happens now?" Claude asks like a child to his mother.

"You and I will rest, until the time comes that you will see her again. I have no knowlege of when that will be, son of Riegan, but it won't be for long. Let us wait until Byleth comes back to you."

**Author's Note:**

> oh goddess what would i be if i didn't write some spicy angst
> 
> i know at some point im gonna write a second part to this but WHO KNOWS WHEN THAT WILL BE
> 
> for now, we rest and think about the angst


End file.
